Malaysia Airlines admits it has 'work to do' to win back flying public's trust

Malaysia Airlines concedes it still has work to do to win back the confidence of Australia's flying public following the loss of two of its passenger jetliners earlier this year.

The flag carrier has stressed that it will maintain its existing capacity on routes to Australia, its largest market after Malaysia, despite an initial slump in bookings.

Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner said demand for Malaysia Airlines fell 40 per cent in the weeks following the incidents, and was still down about 10 per cent on the same period last year. Credit:Reuters

Before the loss of MH370 and MH17, the airline had committed to boosting capacity by a third this year, and now has 74 flights a week to Australian cities including Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

Speaking in Sydney, Malaysia Airlines commercial director Hugh Dunleavy said bookings dropped significantly in the months following the air disasters, and the airline discounted fares to win back travellers.

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"It does take time – people don't forget about some of these issues immediately.": Malaysia Airlines' Hugh Dunleavy.Credit:Getty Images

"It does take time – people don't forget about some of these issues immediately," he said.

"[Demand for flights] is coming back but of course our competitors are also active in the market in trying to take the traffic that was traditionally flying on Malaysia Airlines."

Malaysia Airlines MH370 veered off course on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, disappearing without trace with 239 passengers and crew, including six Australians.

Because of the large number of Chinese on board the plane, demand on the airline's routes to China slumped dramatically following the loss of the Boeing 777, and has proved the hardest to win back.

Four months after the loss of MH370, Malaysia Airlines MH17 was shot down while flying over Ukraine from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, claiming the lives of 298 passengers, including 38 Australians.

In September, Dutch investigators stopped short of saying MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, finding it crashed after a "large number of high-energy objects" penetrated its fuselage.

Dr Dunleavy concedes MH370 will remain a mystery until the plane is found.

More than 2500 square kilometres of sea bed in the southern Indian Ocean has been scoured for trace of the aircraft as part of an effort led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

Searchers have targeted a long but narrow arc in the Indian Ocean since late March.

"Provided we can get the black boxes, then we could see what happened that triggered the turn [and] what decisions were being made," he said.

The cockpit voice recorders, however, are unlikely to reveal what occurred at the moment the plane veered off course because they only record for several hours, before taping over material.

In contrast, the black box on MH17 revealed that everything was normal in the cockpit before stopping in an instant when the plane was struck by a suspected missile over a war zone in eastern Ukraine.

The airline will begin installing new tracking devices in aircraft in November following work with the world's peak airline body and the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

Dr Dunleavy said the loss of MH370 led to a significant drop in bookings because wild speculation about what had occurred made the travelling public nervous.

"When the search [for MH370] was headquartered in the Perth area, it made it much more visible [to the Australian public]," he said.

"When there are plenty of choices for air travel, Malaysia Airlines would have not been your number-one choice at that time."

Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner said demand for Malaysia Airlines fell 40 per cent in the weeks following the incidents, and was still down about 10 per cent on the same period last year.

"This does fade with time and I think in another year you will find it won't have any impact," he said. "But it is certainly having some impact at the moment."

The latest government traffic statistics show Malaysia Airlines filled just over 60 per cent of seats on flights from Australia in July. However, inbound flights from Malaysia to Australia were almost 88 per cent full.

Dutch authorities are leading the investigation into the downing of MH17 in the Ukraine.

Dr Dunleavy said a further forensic investigation of the crash site was "probably minimal at best mainly because of the number of people in there immediately" after it was shot down.

The major difference between the two incidents was the lack of closure for family of passengers on MH370. "From a family member perspective, not knowing what happened to the aircraft is the biggest stress point," he said.

Malaysia Airlines shareholders will vote next week on the country's sovereign wealth fund, Khazanah, buying the remaining 30 per cent of the airline it does not already own.

Following the expected renationalisation, the airline will be delisted from the Malaysian stock exchange within weeks. About 6000 jobs will eventually be cut from its its 20,000-strong workforce.